Columbia

Shensi Ding and Gil Feig's experience at Columbia University revealed a fundamental problem: developers spent enormous time building and maintaining integrations between software systems. ​​‌‌‌‌‌‌‌​‌‌​​‌​​​​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​​‌‌They initially assumed their primary customers would be individual developers and small engineering teams who felt this pain acutely. However, as they began founder-led sales conversations, they discovered their real buyers were product and engineering leaders at mid-market companies facing integration sprawl across dozens of tools. These leaders needed a centralized solution, not just a developer convenience. The founders' willingness to conduct sales themselves—rather than relying solely on self-serve mechanisms—proved critical. Early conversations validated that companies would pay premium prices to eliminate integration maintenance overhead. This direct customer engagement revealed that their original targeting assumptions were incomplete; they'd underestimated how much organizational pain integrations caused at scale. The signal that validated their approach was immediate: when they spoke directly to decision-makers about time savings and engineering capacity recovery, customers engaged seriously.